


Damaged Goods

by theflowerprincesleeps



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Disorders, M/M, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:36:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflowerprincesleeps/pseuds/theflowerprincesleeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn has PTSD and Liam has no idea how to fix him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged Goods

**Author's Note:**

> This could sort of be like...a (sad, depressing) continuation of Christmas in a Cup only because I sort of hinted at it within the fic, but it could also stand alone so...yeah.

It’s been two years. Two years since Zayn’s come home. Come home from the endless pops of machine guns and the white hot explosions hidden under charred, scorched dirt. 

Zayn isn’t Zayn anymore. 

Liam can tell. 

When Zayn first came home there was bad news. Liam received the news, from people he’d never seen but recognized their faces from the descriptions Zayn gave of them (from the nights he’d video chatted Zayn, and the time difference would be all out of whack, but Liam didn’t care if it was three in the morning or midnight, he’d always answer).

Even though they said the war was over, it wasn’t. Just because one side won, and some treaties were signed, and troops were sent home doesn’t mean the war was actually over. Some people still heard the bombs going off, and would recount every dead body of their comrades. 

Of children caught in crossfire. 

When Zayn first came home, he’d dig into the red hot memories in his mind and count on his fingers every dead body he’d encountered. Liam tried to stop him after fifty-eight but Zayn wasn’t finished yet, he was nowhere near fucking done.

When Zayn first came back from the rattling bullets and abandoned corpses covered in sand Liam cried every night because Zayn wasn’t himself anymore. His brain didn’t know how to keep the past in the past. It didn’t know what to do with the crimson, tattered images, and it just kept attacking. Liam couldn’t help but feel as if it were his fault. That he wasn’t enough to keep Zayn with him. But Zayn wanted to tell Liam this was his own fault, and not to blame himself. Zayn wanted to sleep without the sweltering flashes of his friend, Louis Tomlinson, being blown to bits. But Zayn, the one who existed before the war, was caked so far within post-war Zayn that he might never get out. 

Not ever.

Liam cried when he learned his Zayn, had PTSD. Liam didn’t want to cry though, because in his heart he already knew.

Zayn couldn’t hear what the doctors easily diagnosed him with because he was too busy screaming. Screaming for Louis to watch out, screaming for Louis to stop, and screaming when Louis went up in flames, whimpering when Louis wasn’t Louis anymore. Zayn screeched when Louis was sent up to the sky, chopped into pieces, and became part of the ground.

Liam heard Zayn sometimes sob Louis’s name in his sleep. Liam he knows he can never fix Zayn.

As Zayn shoots up, pulling covers with him and leaving Liam cold, he is terrified. His hair is disheveled and he can feel that forsaken uniform sticking to his skin. He can feel the grainy sand and dirt drilled into his fingertips. He feel blind, the Sun is making his vision white and spotty. It was then that Zayn began to curse the uniform. He tried to rip it from his body. But Liam was within the real world, and Zayn was just scratching at his body. Clawing and pulling, Zayn felt like he was suffocating.

 

One morning, when Zayn was making breakfast a quick, violent memory sparked. Zayn felt proud of himself because his conscious hadn’t beaten his awareness in the past three hours. So some optimism graced his thoughts. Maybe he could be human again. Maybe he could be Zayn Malik again. 

Zayn’s enthusiasm was short lived though. The toaster dinged, slight burned bread shooting up with the pop.

A pop?

Zayn’s mind raced, a pop, pops are bad, pops are loud, pops are bullets, bullets come from guns, guns are held by the enemy, there isn’t anything to defend with, hide.

Zayn’s mind spoke these things, and he let out a grunt as he dived behind the kitchen counter, tears lacing his cheeks as they tumbled down his face to the floor. He was shaking, Zayn thought he was home for a second. Zayn thought he was out. Zayn thought Liam was upstairs, still asleep. 

The dirty sand, he could feel it under his knees, and on his tongue. Zayn begged for his savior. 

Hands were on his back, the grip was tight, and Zayn was done for! The enemy had found him. But when Zayn opened his eyes to see the ones who would end him, it was Liam. 

Why was Liam in the middle of a warzone?

Ceramic tiles and counter tops grew around Zayn. Zayn wasn’t at war, he was now in Liam’s arms. Zayn sobbed apologizing to Liam, because Zayn knew he was defective. Liam can’t take him back, his warranty ran out. So Liam has to keep Zayn. 

Liam couldn’t help but want to hide Zayn away from the world, hide him from everything because it seemed everything was going to be a trigger. He didn’t want Zayn to have to relive anything he did during those time covered with searing rays burning, and auburn sand. But nearly anything was a trigger so he can’t.

Once Liam was tapping his hand on the coffee table in the living room. 

Zayn was ambling in the hallway, halfway in between a world with Liam and a world with failed missions and more people lying dead on the ground, more baking bodies to be left. The tapping of Liam’s fingers reminded Zayn of the sound of his boots, all the troops’ boots marching. Marching to suicide, marching to oblivion.

Zayn had another episode and Liam wanted to pull his Zayn out of that disturbed body. 

One night Liam thought his ears were going to bleed. 

Zayn released a blood chilling shriek. Liam ran into the bathroom, Zayn was kneeled next to the toilet cradling an invisible body.

“Niall! What happened? N-Niall!”

Later, over a cold cup of tea Zayn recollected the memory of that fallen comrade and adorned Liam with the story. Zayn spoke slowly, he was tired. Zayn should be tired.

“N-Niall. He was this Irish fellow on my squad. He was funny, he laughed a lot, especially when people didn’t think laughter should be there at all. He made me happy Li. Y-you make me happy too but he was like a little brother or something. I-I found his body, I don’t know what happened to him, but it was red and blotchy from the sun. His eyes were baby blue, and dead. Ants were swarming his body, all over the red leaking from him. The ants were pouring from his mouth, and marching over his dead eyes. They were coming out of his nose, some were entering his mouth. Those ants were eating him Liam. I threw up. But some other people yelled at me, told me to keep going. ”

Liam clutched his stomach, he thought he was going to be sick.

Zayn squinted his eyes and pursed his lips before he stood up and locked himself in the bathroom. He sat there in the bathtub, feeling icy shower tiles against his skin. It didn’t feel anything like the sun, and red sands that were itchy and gritty. Zayn liked the cold now.

Maybe if he sat here long enough, he could turn back into himself. The Zayn Liam actually loved. The Zayn who asked Liam to marry him. Zayn knows Liam hates him now.

But Liam didn’t hate Zayn. He loves Zayn, he never stopped. He remembered the day Zayn proposed to him, it was in the café they met. Zayn actually worked there and somewhere along the coffees and pastries or something along those lines Liam kind of fell for Zayn. Liam would always appreciate his friend Harry, convincing Liam to go to that little ol’ coffee shop.

That’s why when Zayn decided to join the army he felt distraught.

But Liam always considers himself a little lucky, even though Zayn isn’t in his right mind at least he’s alive. And this Zayn looks like the old Zayn and somewhere under stench of war Zayn is still there.

One afternoon Liam comes home from work to find Zayn in the living room, the entire room is trashed, and the coffee table was flipped, and shattered, the television had been thrown across the room. Liam couldn’t help but cry. 

Zayn crawled over to Liam and looked him in the eye, “I-It’s going to be okay…this is war. These things happen. I-I never really learned your name but we have to keep moving. W-we have to keep going.”

Liam’s mouth was dry and he thought he’d might suffocate, Zayn didn’t even recognize him anymore. 

Zayn shook his head and a bit and then pressed his thumbs to his eye lids until he was seeing stars. Zayn kept his eyes closed and stiffened when his husband wrapped shaky arms around him.

“Li…I’m scared.”

Liam didn’t know what to do, it’s not like he ever had. Doctors told him to give Zayn a comfortable home life, and suit life towards him because there were so many triggers that could set his husband off. Liam took Zayn a lot doctors (even though they never seemed to help).

Liam lied in bed that night, and Zayn was tucked under his arm, all Liam could hope for, was that one day things would get better.


End file.
